Monday, 23 October 2017

An English mother identified as Callie recently appeared on Loose
Women to reveal how she believed cannabis saved her dying son Deryn’s
life.

Deryn was 14 when he was sent to a hospice to live out his final days.

According to Metro UK, he had battled leukemia and a very rare
cancer called Langerhans cell sarcoma, but was on palliative care having
been left with a weakened immune system and infections, meaning all
other medical intervention had been withdrawn.

His mum began a desperate search to find anything that might prolong his life.

‘He was given one week to live,’ he told the Loose Women
panel. She turned to the drug after hearing it could help, and began
smuggling into his hospital room to help ease his pain, risking 14 years
in prison.

‘The hospice workers called it his ‘magic under the bed’,’ she
said, but she couldn’t tell doctors exactly what she was doing for fear
of being arrested and losing her children.

‘I was so fearful my children would be taken into care, I so afraid the one thing that worked would be taken away from Deryn,’ she said.

Although she was very clear the drug did not cure his cancer, she
claims it did help clear up infections and helped him to come off pain
relief such as morphine to allow him to have ‘the death he wanted.’

‘You can’t function if you don’t make own blood cells and he said he didn’t want more transfusions,’ she said, explaining Deryn had been told he had no bone marrow left.

‘He had infections in his hands and he had necrosis. They wanted to amputate his hand.’

It was then she claimed a miracle happened: ‘Five days after I gave him cannabis the bandages came off his fingers and the infection gone.’

Host Ruth Langsford then put the question to Deryn, now 17, how did he feel about his mum risking her freedom.

‘Because I was on the brink of death I was up for doing anything,’ he said honestly. ‘It wasn’t going to hurt me any more than what was happening. I’d planned my funeral.’

When asked if he was worried about her breaking the law, he added:
‘Not really because quite selfishly if it didn’t work I wouldn’t have
been around.’

Callie was asked by panellist Jane if she worried about the side effects of using the drug and its link to psychosis.

‘At the time I didn’t worry, I did a lot of research,’ she said, ‘We
need to take this drug out of the hands of dealers. You only get
psychosis with high THC strains, which is what you’d get on the street.’

Callie is now campaigning for the legalisation of the drug as
research into its medicinal effects cannot take place while it’s
illegal.

Deryn is now cancer free, and his only medical issue is having high iron from the blood transfusions he’d previously had.